Our office was asked to renovate the living area of a detached house that was constructed approximatively 20 years ago and since then has undergone continuous improvements.
The main challenge of this project was that the interiors had been completed recently with a good architectural design. In fact, during the first house survey, the house seemed not to require any further improvements.
The client’s main requirement was to unite the dining room and the kitchen, since they were initially conceived as separate spaces. We removed the existing walls and glazing that divided the two rooms and focused on uniting the spaces using furniture. The “L” shape of the wall cabinets define the kitchen area while the counter top expands its boundaries into the atrium (open storage cabinet) and into the dining room (snack table).
To ease this outwards expansion, we kept the shape of the elements as neutral and clean as possible. This was obtained by reducing the chromatic differences to a minimum. As for the materials, the white varnished wood and the white kitchen countertop contribute towards spreading light; whereas the use of desaturated Canaletto Walnut for the shutters, wall cabinets, and snack table provides texture to the volumes. Furthermore, the luminosity of the walls and ceiling is counterbalanced by the dark tone of the floor slabs.
The same approach was applied to the lobby and the staircase that leads to the bedrooms on the upper floor. In the lobby the antiaesthetic ventilation grills in the existing false ceiling were replaced with discreet horizontal slots. On the staircase, the oak finish was replaced by the same slab finish used for the kitchen floor, thus providing the staircase with a cleaner and more material appearance.
View Original